


Santa and All His Reindeer (Can't Stop Me From Loving You)

by Armygirl0604



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 25 Days of Christmas OTP Challenge: 2015, Aro/Ace Natasha, Aromantic Asexual Natasha Romanov, Aromantic Natasha Romanov, Asexual Natasha Romanov, Avengers Family, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky has a Starbucks problem, Bucky has a pinterest, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Movies, Christmas Party, Demisexual Bucky, F/M, Families of Choice, Family, Gen, M/M, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Pinterest, Pinterest as a plot device, Protective Bucky Barnes, Sam is a Saint, Self-Sufficient Bucky, Starbuck - Freeform, Starbucks, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Steve Rogers is a little shit, Stucky - Freeform, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony avoids work a lot, recovered bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 19:08:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5387054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Armygirl0604/pseuds/Armygirl0604
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve shrugs. “I don’t have any,” he says.<br/>Sam frowns and exchanges a long look with Bucky. “You don’t have any holiday cheer?”<br/>“Christmas decorations,” Steve says. “I don’t have any. It's not like I had anyone to celebrate with." Bucky feels his stomach drop.<br/>In which Bucky Barnes endeavors to give Steve Rogers the Ultimate Christmas Experience to make up for the years out of the ice he spent alone. Written for the 25 Days of Christmas OTP Challenge 2015</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day One: Putting Up Christmas Decorations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JenJoanAlley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenJoanAlley/gifts).



> Yes, I know I'm eight days late. Yes, I'm scrambling to catch up. No, I have no shame.

            It’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving when Bucky finds the first notice. The piece of white paper is rolled into a scroll and rubber-banded to their door handle. He takes it out and unrolls it on his way to the kitchen. The inside is printed almost entirely in garish red and green, complete with cartoonish art of Santa and his sleigh, a tree, a holly border, and several strings of Christmas bulbs between paragraphs. The text turns out to be a “helpful reminder” from the management at the HOA office that tenants are encouraged to put up holiday lights and decorate within one week of Thanksgiving in preparation for the holiday season.

            Honestly, Bucky’s not even really sure why they _have_ a Home Owner’s Association. They don’t own the townhouse, but even if they did, it’s a townhome. It’s got the nearly the same square footage as Steve’s old apartment overlooking the National Mall. The only difference is instead of being a tactical mess any decent sniper could have a field day with, with an equally unsafe indoor entryway; they’ve got a street-facing front door and only a few narrow windows that are all set with bulletproof glass, courtesy of Stark, and their space is split between three narrow levels instead of being on one floor. They live in a glorified apartment.

            Bucky’s not complaining; they’ve got more space than they know what to do with and for the first time in his life, he’s living in a home where the tenants don’t live on top of each other, encroaching on each other’s every move. He has his own space: a bedroom to call his own that he has the money to actually make comfortable for the first time ever. He has his own bathroom, a space with an antique claw foot tub and plush rugs to cover the chill of the tile in the mornings. His door faces Steve’s but he has freedom to choose if he wants it open or closed, if he wants company or privacy. It’s a whole world away from a mat with a sheet hung as a curtain to separate his space from that of the rest of the family’s. If he wants, he can go downstairs at any time, day or night, and have a cup of coffee or tea and sit on a comfortable sofa that isn’t being used as anyone’s bed without worrying about waking anyone up by being in their space. A two bedroom townhome is the epitome of luxury, compared to his past. But still. It’s a townhome. It has no business having an HOA; especially not a townhome in Alexandria. For Christ’s sake, they don’t even have a front garden. They have a stairway and a flowerbox; how the hell does that need any sort of regulating body?

            To be fair, he’s never had an HOA in his life anyway. In Brooklyn they’d had mostly old-law apartments with interior windows or maybe one that opened into a garbage shoot, if they were really unlucky. Hydra hadn’t exactly been concerned with where to house the cryo tank they’d kept him in, either. There wasn’t any room in his life for poorly decorated, passive aggressive notices to hang colored lights from his windows in either of those lifetimes.

            He has no idea if it had been a requirement at Steve’s last apartment. He’d been in too much of a haze to notice any tacky memos to decorate, anyway. Those months spent regaining his memories and rebuilding his identity from the ground up were a blur. If Steve had decorated, if they’d celebrated the holidays at all, he’d been too out of it to notice.

            Now, though. Now he felt like a person again. A person with a few screws loose, but a person nonetheless. He certainly wasn’t hiding in a dingy sublet while Steve tried to put him back together, anymore. He did all the things he was supposed to: he stuck to his routine, went to his appointments, hell he even let Stark build him a better, more real looking arm. He was a _person_ , now. Besides, as his therapist was constantly telling him, doing normal everyday life activities was good for him. They helped him figure out his likes and dislikes and helped him adjust to the modern world.

            Bucky sets the letter next to the coffeepot. He doesn’t know where Steve keeps his Christmas decorations, but the spot by the coffeepot is where Steve keeps all their important mail like bills and he would see it and know what to do. On the whiteboard, Bucky marks the blocks for the 24th and 25th with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, respectively.

            That was the thing about having a completely shot short term memory. Things slipped by him these days; it just happened. Stark’s doctors said he’d accumulated significant damage to his medial temporal lobe and while most of it seemed to heal at an unprecedented rate due to his own lesser version of Steve’s serum, the scar tissue that had already formed wouldn’t heal any further. They were impressed he could process new information and make new memories at all, but they also seemed amazed he could function like a normal human being and he hadn’t decided if he was insulted by that or not, yet. Sure, the little things slipped by him: he forgot pills and appointments; he missed dates like holidays and birthdays, but so did plenty of people out in the world. Steve didn’t seem bothered by it at least. The fifth time Bucky forgot an appointment, he’d come home with a large whiteboard with a fill-in calendar on it and a space for listing other reminders and they’d used that ever since. As far as Bucky’s concerned that solves the problem.

            Of course, the board only works if he actually writes the reminders he needs on it. Asking Steve about the Christmas decorations is one of those reminders he should have written. It completely slips by him until a week and a half later, when Sam comes over for dinner. That’s one of the things Bucky knows Steve likes about living in DC, maybe even more than being close to Peggy: he gets to see Sam on the regular. Sam shows up on their doorstep with a case of seasonal Samuel Adams in one hand and another rolled up paper in the other. “This was attached to your door,” he tells Bucky as a means of greeting. “Which one of these do you want me to pop in the freezer for you?”

            “Holiday Porter,” Bucky says, eyeing the case. “Steve’s out back with the grill, rest of the food is on the counter.” He takes the paper and unrolls it as he shuts the door and follows Sam through the living room to the kitchen.

            This notice has no decorations and whoever wrote it was definitely upping the ante on passive aggressive requests. “Dear Tenant,” it reads. “Please be advised tomorrow is December first, the start of the holiday season. Your unit,” and this is followed by their address number, “is _highly encouraged_ to contribute to the community’s dedication to the holidays by decorating your home.” It goes on for several lines, reiterating the rules and restrictions for decorating and ends with, “We ask that you be courteous and considerate to your neighbors and the other tenants by doing your part to decorate our community this holiday season. Thank you; Management.”

            Bucky frowns. He’d left the first notice in Steve’s memo spot; he’s sure of it. He walks over to the coffeepot to check and low and behold, the notice is sitting next to it stained with nearly two weeks worth of coffee splashes. “Hey Steve?”

            The backdoor slides open and Steve pokes his head in from their small deck. “Yeah, Buck?”

            Bucky holds up the coffee stained letter. “You didn’t check your memos.”

            Steve opens the door the rest of the way and comes inside, followed by Sam. He takes both notices and looks them over. “No, I saw it,” he says.

            Sam takes the letters from him and skims them. “Are you planning to wait for them to start sending death threats and pictures of bleeding kittens as a warning, or were you just not feeling the Christmas cheer?”

            Steve shrugs and dumps the bag of tortilla chips on the table into a bowl. “I don’t have any,” he says.

            Sam frowns. “You don’t have any…cheer?”

            “Christmas decorations,” Steve says. “I don’t have any.”

            Sam is looking at him like this is a cause for concern. “How long have you been out of the ice? I think you’ve had time to get a few garlands, man.”

            “It never came up,” Steve says. He continues moving about the kitchen, unconcerned. Bucky is watching Sam closely, trying to understand what the big deal is. It certainly answers his earlier question on if Steve had decorated last year. Steve lived in an apartment; there wasn’t much place _to_ hang lights before, so he hadn’t had them. They hadn’t been living in the townhome all that long either; there hadn’t been any need to get lights yet.

            “Okay, but you’ve got to have, like, ornaments for the tree, right?”

            Steve shakes his head and _oh._ Now Bucky is starting to see what Sam is worried about. “Steve,” he says slowly. Words don’t always come out the right way for him these days and he doesn’t want to offend Steve by being too blunt. Steve will just shut down and refuse to tell them anything else at all if he does that and the last thing this conversation needs is Steve going on the defense. “Decorating isn’t a huge deal for us, I get that. But…what have you been doing for the holidays?”

            “Last year I was too busy,” Steve says and Bucky can hear the unspoken _taking care of you._ It doesn’t bother him; it’s true. Steve had held him together until he could do it himself; until he wasn’t struggling to keep his head above water but slowly starting to swim again. It wasn’t something he was ashamed of. He nods, urging Steve to go on. “Before that,” Steve adds, “it just didn’t really seem all that important.”

            “I thought you liked the holidays,” Bucky says.

            Steve holds his gaze for about 0.2 seconds before looking away. “Who was I going to celebrate with?” he asks.

            And _oh_ that hits him like a knife to the gut. All the air rushes out of his lungs and for a second he’s struggling to breathe. There either aren’t words to explain what he’s feeling or he hasn’t found them again yet. “That’s fair,” he says weakly because Steve is clearly waiting for an answer. “You should check on those steaks before they turn into jerky, though.”

            Steve bolts outside and Bucky sinks to the floor, his hands clasped to his knees. “Barnes?” Sam kneels next to him. “You okay?”

            Every once in a while, it hits him all over again how lucky he is, in a sick way, compared to Steve. When he woke up, it was because Steve’s voice called him back. When Steve woke up, he was alone. Bucky got out and fell right into the arms of a support system that took care of him until he could do it himself. Steve had to build that system all on his own. He thinks of what Natalia-turned-Natasha told him; remembers that she tried to set Steve up on dates and remembers her repeating the words, “All the guys in my barbershop quartet are dead,” the poor joke to cover how alone Steve really was. He thinks of what he knows about how Steve met Sam, about the way he’s read between the lines to see the way Sam reached out to a veteran who was so obviously and cripplingly alone because that’s just the way Sam is and that’s how clearly broken Steve was. He thinks of the way Steve is now, cut off from his teammates in a way he never was with the Commandos. The way he leads but from a distance. The way he keeps them all at arm’s length. Bucky slowly shakes his head. No. He’s not okay at all. He wets his lips. “StarkPad?” he asks.

            Sam gets up and leaves the room, coming back a minute or so later to push the tablet into Bucky’s lap. Bucky unlocks it and opens the Pinterest app. It’s something Clint showed him; an app wholly dedicated to DIY and recipes and all the little creature comforts of the world. It was the first thing he’d discovered he really liked, having the ability to make lists on it that couldn’t be lost like paper. He’s got boards of things he likes, things he doesn’t like, things he hasn’t tried yet. He stands up and starts a new board, titling it “First Christmas.”

            “Sam?” he says. “Grab our beers and come sit. We’ve got work to do.”

            Steve finds them ten minutes later, heads bent over the pad while they sit on the couch with their half-finished beers on the table in front of them. Bucky’s pinned a few different ways to decorate a townhouse, a list of the best Christmas movies, a BuzzFeed link for “[20 Awesome Christmas Tree Themes You’ll Want to Steal](http://www.buzzfeed.com/alessiasantoro/omg-your-christmas-tree-is-so-cooooool#.cw21KXZbz)”, several DIY projects, and a list called “25 Days of Cheer, a List of Classic Christmas Activities to Put On Your Bucket List.” He closes the app and sets the StarkPad aside as they head to the table. They talk about normal things over dinner: Sam’s decision to finish his degree in counseling so he can do more one-on-one sessions and get a raise, Steve’s efforts to help rebuild SHIELD, and Bucky’s progress with his modern-world bucket list. He’s moved on from books to films and so far he’s found he likes comedies but hates horror and has decided that should any of them ever go on a killing spree, everyone involved in the creation of Marley and Me has to be the top of the hit list. Steve winces at that, but Bucky’s personally found it to be better to learn to laugh. If he couldn’t laugh about it, he’s not sure he’d be able to get out of bed. They bullshit and drink beer and at some point they pull out a deck of cards, and the rest of the night goes without incident, the notices from the HOA never mentioned again.

            That night, after Sam has left and Steve has gone to bed, Bucky opens the tablet again and takes a pad of paper and a pen from the kitchen drawer. He goes through the pins one by one and makes a list. Then he tucks that into his wallet and goes to bed.

            The next morning he rises while Steve is out running and gets dressed. Steve’s already started the coffee, as usual, so he queues up a playlist of Christmas music and starts making breakfast. Steve comes in half an hour later and Bucky is whistling along to Jingle Bell Rock. “Shower and get dressed,” he calls over his shoulder. “We’re going out.”

            After they’ve eaten and cleaned up from breakfast, Bucky ushers Steve into the Escape they’ve got parked out front. Clint calls it a “mom car” but Bucky likes the cushy seats that have warmers in them and the ease of driving it. He refuses to take offense to that. He likes his creature comforts and frankly, he’s allowed to want to be spoiled after years in Hydra’s clutches. Bucky keeps the Christmas music going in the car, too. “Where are we going?” Steve asks when they’re already on the I-95.

            Bucky just smirks. “To get our holiday cheer on.” He can feel Steve looking at him and he spares a glance over. “If it’s Christmas cheer the HOA wants, it’s Christmas cheer they’ll get.” He gets off at Franconia-Springfield and guides them along the streets until they hit the Springfield Mall parking lot. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get going.” Without another word, he leads them into Target.

            Bucky loves Target. Bucky loves Target like a suburban soccer mom of four loves Target. And in his opinion, the Springfield Mall Target is the _best_ Target. He doesn’t have any particular reason; he just likes this Target the most.

            He starts by demanding Starbucks. He grabs Steve’s hand and drags him over to the counter, where he tells the girl, “The biggest, most Christmassy Christmas drink you can give me that doesn’t taste like coffee” because saying that means he doesn’t have to choose for himself.

            The girl at the counter is a short Hispanic girl with blue tips in her hair. She’s wearing earrings with penguins on them and glittery black nail polish with blue sparkles. She absolutely lights up at his request, replying with “Challenge accepted.” Her hands dance across the touch screen as she builds his order. “And for you?” Her gaze turns to Steve.

            “Tall dark roast, black,” Steve says, because he apparently doesn’t share Bucky’s Christmas spirit.

            Bucky frowns. “Make him something like you made me, but with coffee.” He says it in a rush, before he can stop himself. He remembers when he used to be assertive, when he used to strong-arm Steve into doctors and medicine and getting enough to eat; he remembers doing the same thing good naturedly to make sure Steve had a good time and didn’t box himself up in his room with a sketchbook. He remembers how it used to make Steve smile even while he pretended to have a snit, because he secretly liked Bucky making sure he had a little fun. He remembers being the kind of guy that made sure Steve Rogers had fun. He thinks he’d like to be that kind of guy again. Especially since Steve clearly needs it now more than ever. He holds his ground.

            Steve rolls his eyes good naturedly. “Fine, what he said. Give me a Christmas drink.”

            The girl’s face lights up again. “Did you want the same or would you like to try something different?”

            Steve looks at Bucky and his eyes are warm, like he really is happy about Bucky’s ridiculous Christmas themed demands. “Surprise us.”

           

            Drinks in hand, they get a cart and Bucky says, “Where to first?”

            Steve snorts. “Don’t look at me,” he says. “You’re the one who started all this.”

            Bucky looks down at his list. “Let’s start in the back,” he says, “and work our way forward.” It’s what he always says. He takes a sip of his coffee. White chocolate and peppermint splash across his tongue, sweet and perfectly balanced. There’s notes of ginger in there, too, and he’s pretty sure it’s made with eggnog. “I’m drinking Christmas in a cup,” he announces.

            Steve is sipping his own drink. “Pretty sure that’s what you asked for, Buck.”

            “It’s the greatest thing in the world, hold on.” Bucky stops the cart to take a picture of the side of his cup with his phone so he can remember to pin his “ Venti peppermint white hot chocolate with one pump of gingerbread syrup, made with eggnog, extra whip, with cinnamon and chocolate curls on top” to his “Things I Like” board on pinterest.        

            By the time they actually reach the decorations section in the back of the store, their cart is already partially filled with Christmas-themed goods from other sections. There’s at least a dozen pairs of Christmas socks sitting in the front with a few CDs and DVDs and a myriad of other goods in the bottom. Bucky heads over to the tree toppers first. The very first thing he sees is the line of nearly sold out Captain America ornaments. He starts to laugh. “Stevie, look, you can be our Christmas tree topper.” He holds up a box with a topper in the shape of Steve’s shield. There’s another one of a Christmas angel in Steve’s old uniform. “This one is even better,” he laughs. “Let’s get this one; we need this on our tree.”

            “No, Bucky.” Steve is turning bright red and looking everywhere but at the boxes. “Put them down.”

            “Aw, Steve, come on,” Bucky cajoles. “Don’t you wanna be on our tree?” He picks up a box with the Avengers logo as the topper. “Or how about we just include everyone?”

            Steve holds up an Iron Man topper. “Or we could have Stark up there if you’re so keen on having an Avenger riding our tree.”

            Bucky shakes his head. “Nah, Stark would like having our tree up his ass too much; we can’t afford for his ego to get any bigger.”

            Steve snorts and they move on to other toppers, bickering about the pros and cons of a star versus an angel. Steve says suddenly, “Forget the topper. I have a better idea.”

            “Steve?” Bucky looks up from where he’d been pondering over two light-up stars.

            Steve is smiling. “Yeah, I know what topper we need.”

            “Care to share with the class?” Bucky straightens up and steps toward him.

            Steve shakes his head. “It’s a surprise.”

            Bucky narrows his eyes. Steve is smirking to himself and gazing at the Swarovski picture frame ornaments, not meeting Bucky’s gaze at all. He looks like a little kid with a secret. Bucky starts to feel warmth blossom in his chest. “Okay,” he says. “Keep your secrets but help me pick out our color scheme. All they’ve got left is silver and blue or red and green.”

            They go with red and green not only because they’re the classics but because the blue and silver remind them both of ice, even though neither one says it. Steve catches Bucky eyeing the lone box of Swarovski figurines that are forty dollars a box and puts them gently in the cart. Bucky starts to argue because _seriously, forty bucks for ten little ornaments_ , but Steve pretends not to hear him and moves on to a box of two dozen candy canes.

            Bucky freezes up when it comes time to pick the lights because _holy shit there are a lot of choices_ and he’s normally totally fine with stating his opinion-hell, he’s better with it now than ever before because now he knows how sacred the right to make a choice is-but there’s so many he starts to feel overwhelmed. Steve notices right away and drops his arm around Bucky’s shoulder. “I like these a lot,” he says, tapping a box of bulky old-school colored lights on a green wire.

Bucky snorts. “You would, old man.” But he feels himself relaxing again and tosses a few boxes in the cart alongside a packet of window stickers. They finish up their Target shopping and load the bags into the back of the Escape. Bucky drags him over to the Michaels across the street and it turns out there's even _more_ ornaments there, so they go through those too. Steve picks out one of nearly every rustic ornament, from cardinals sitting in nests of holly that clip to the branches to a white deer that hangs from a gold thread. Once he's gotten in the mood, his excitement starts to show through. Bucky wants to believe he's just enjoying the outing and the season but he keeps _looking_ at Bucky, like he's grateful Bucky is doing this, like it's a gift. It reminds Bucky of the way he used to feel being given real any sort of kindness by Hydra, like it was too good to be true and could disappear at any second. He just looks so damn happy, like he's amazed at not being alone and being able to have a Christmas again. It reminds Bucky that he's so damn young. They're both so damn young and hell, it isn't fair. It isn't fair to either of them, but he's having a whole lot easier a time being upset for Steve than he is himself. He's pretty sure it's his coping mechanism: translating his feelings about the world into relatable terms of "how he feels about Steve in relation to x-y-z." And Steve is having so much damn fun picking out ornaments that Bucky wants to cry all over again. He swallows hard. "Don't go too wild," he says. "We're making some, too."

            Steve looks up, startled. He stares at Bucky for a minute, then says, "Yeah, okay." They end up picking out at least a dozen more anyway.

            They pick out an empty wreath they like, one that looks like it's made of intertwining grape vine with pine and holly woven in. They buy a glue gun and a set of acryllic paints and brushes and a box of unfinished ceramic ornaments to paint. There's also yarn to pick out and little crochet hooks to make Santa and his reindeer and beads and clothespins to make a sleigh and angels. When their cart is as full as it will go, they finally call it quits and take it to the front. The boy at the counter looks overwhelmed but he takes a deep breath and nods determinedly. Five minutes and two dozen bags later, they're thanking him and pushing the cart to the car. Steve takes a moment on the way out to tell the manager how impressed he was by how fast the boy in lane 5 got them checked out because that's the kind of guy he is. Bucky grins because he can't find a single damn reason to complain about that.

            They hit the grocery store on the way home, too. Partially because they need to go shopping anyway, partially because there's still a whole slew of things Bucky hasn't picked up yet. They hurry through that one because Bucky doesn't like the grocery store half as much as commercial shopping. Steve tackles meat and dairy while Bucky hits up produce and they split the aisles in half and meet in the middle, where they combine their purchases and head to the checkout.

            It takes half an hour to unload the car even with superhero strength and by the time they're finished the living room and kitchen look like they've exploded. There are stacks of ornament boxes and shopping bags all over the living room and the counters are full of superhero-quantities of groceries. Bucky puts away the food and gets started on lunch while Steve goes outside to borrow a ladder from their neighbor who is most definitely a SHIELD agent watching their house and not the suburban newlywed he pretends to be. Or hell, maybe that is his wife and they work together. Bucky doesn't care enough to ask, especially because he's not sure if Steve knows and if he doesn't, Bucky doesn't want to be the one to ruin the neighborhood for him.

            Bucky starts another round of Christmas music going and opens up his recipe board on pinterest to try out grilled cheese made with provolone, turkey, and pesto. It takes him a minute to get the sliced tomatoes to sit on the turkey without sliding off and he has to fiddle with the temperature several times to reach a point where he can get the cheese to melt and the fillings to warm without burning the bread, but soon there's a stack of grilled cheeses keeping warm in the oven while he finishes heating up homemade tomato soup. When it's done, he ladles it evenly into two bowls and puts the plate of sandwiches on the table. He leans out the front door but Steve has worked his way over the roof to the back. "Hey Steve?" he shouts up at the roof. "Lunch is ready."

            Steve drops down from the roof without use of the ladder and Bucky rolls his eyes. "Great timing." Steve unclips his tool belt from his waist and drops it by the back door. "I just finished."

            "How's it look out there?" Bucky asks.

            Steve just smiles. "You'll have to wait for nightfall." He looks at the table. "Thanks for cooking, Buck. Lunch looks great."

            Bucky tries not to squirm at the fact that Steve always sounds so damn grateful, like Bucky worked a miracle instead of making food. It makes him ache to think that Steve was so lonely that even making his lunch brings a grateful smile to his face. He doesn't say anything, just hands Steve a plate. For all the fact that he's a functioning human being who copes with his trauma and tries to handle his emotions rationally, this is one area where he'd prefer not to speak at all. If he does, he might explode.

 

            After lunch, they bust out the hot glue gun and start to put together their wreath. They've certainly got plenty of ornaments, so they pick and choose which ones they want to sacrafice to their creation and Bucky hands the glue gun over to Steve. His artist brain switches on and Bucky watches quietly while he arranges and rearranges the decorations a dozen times before gluing them into place. When it's done, Bucky hands him the big red and gold bow they'd bought and Steve glues that to the bottom. They hang it on the door and Steve ushers Bucky back inside before he can catch a peak at what Steve did with the lights. They stick the window stickers on the two front windows: Santa and his sleigh take over one window; the reindeer and a few candy canes dominate the other. They stack the rest of the ornaments in a pile in one corner, where Bucky declares the tree will go, and settle down with one of the Christmas movies on Bucky's list. They've worked their way through It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on Thirty-First Street, and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer before Steve declares Bucky can go outside. He makes Bucky face away from the house until he's got the lights plugged in, and then Bucky turns.

Their whole house is lit up in a rainbow of light. There are lights around the windows and the border of the door and roof, and lights wrapped around the top of the chimney. Bucky knows if he went out back there would be lights around the deck like that as well. But what really makes him smile, what makes him laugh, is the blow-up Santa and reindeer set that Steve has set up on the roof. "How did you even sneak that into the cart?" Bucky asks.

            Steve shrugs. "Christmas magic," he says. He throws an arm over Bucky's shoulder. "Happy holidays, Bucky."

            Bucky leans into him. "The HOA can suck our dicks," he says. Then, louder, "Do you hear that, HOA? You can suck it!"

            Steve laughs and then they're both laughing, leaning into each other and giggling as they stumble back toward the door. They flop down on the sofa and Steve pulls up Frosty the Snowman from their queue and Bucky smiles. There's no way in hell anyone is stopping him from giving Steve Rogers the best damn Christmas he's ever had. Not even Santa and all his reindeer could stop him.


	2. Day Two: Making Christmas Cards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve paints cards. Bucky breaks out amigurumi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeey I'm aware this is late I'm still fixing the code to keep it from crashing again. Serves me right for writing in sublime text.

Day Two: Making Christmas Cards

They get Stark’s Christmas card in the mail the next morning. Technically, they get two. The first is a picture of Stark and Pepper Potts, elegantly posed against a winter wonderland background. The greeting reads, “Sending special thoughts to you and yours for a joyful holiday season” and Pepper has added a special note to Steve and Bucky wishing them well and inviting them to the annual Stark Industries Christmas gala on the 23rd. The second is a picture of Stark alone against the backdrop of his workshop. A Christmas tree is jammed into one corner and one of the Iron Man suits is holding up a sprig of mistletoe. Stark has tied a red and green bowtie around Dum-E. Stark himself is wearing a Santa Suit and is draped in a classic pinup pose on the floor. The border announces, “Tell ~~Daddy~~ Santa What You Want for Christmas.” Bucky rolls his eyes and opens the card. Jarvis’s voice says, “Sergeant Barnes and Captain Rogers, the following message is from Mr. Stark, with warm holiday blessings to you both.” Then Stark’s voice chimes in, “Capsicle and Bro-Bot, I expect to see you on the 23rd. Bucksicle, try and get Grandpa Boy Scout to bring a smile with him. Like, an actual smile not that phony shit he gives the trainees.” The message ends there. Steve is frowning at the card, but Bucky can see the fond amusement behind his expression.  
“So I’m thinking we should do Christmas cards,” he says. He gestures to the mantle, where he’s lined up the card Bruce and Betty had sent on the 27th and the one from Natasha and Clint that had mysteriously appeared on their table, alongside a post-it note from Clint telling Bucky he would come back when they weren’t out.  
Steve nods. “Should we go pick some up?”  
Bucky walks over to the stack of Christmas supplies in their living room. He rifles through the bags and pulls out a make-your-own card set he’d picked up at Michaels. “Actually, I was thinking we’d make them,” he says.  
What follows is an uphill art battle the likes of which Bucky wasn’t expecting, but is pleased to watch unfold. Steve pulls out his sketchpad and spends half an hour sketching different outlines for each card, since he plans to send a personalized card to everyone. Bucky spends the first few minutes watching with amusement. “You know there are stickers for a reason,” he starts, and gets a glare in return. He rolls his eyes and picks up the bag with the yarn and crotchet needles and starts to cast on for Santa Claus.  
Crocheting is a habit he picked up from his mother long ago. He can’t really remember the act of helping her make scarves and gloves for his little sisters, but he can remember the way it made him feel to know he was contributing to keeping his family warm and dry. The motion of the work soothed him when he returned and he’d spent a significant portion of his time relearning the art as a coping mechanism last year. He works steadily, faster now with the metal arm and the year of constant practice when he was recovering. Soon he’s got Santa finished and has moved on to a reindeer. Steve has gotten out paints and is creating an individual card for each of their friends. Stark and Pepper get a holiday garland with a lit candle in the center, Bruce and Betty get snowmen in lab coats. He paints a plate of cookies and a mug of cocoa for Clint and nutcrackers for Thor and Jane. Bucky chuckles when he sees Steve painting a falcon in a Santa hat for Sam. When he reaches Nat’s card, Bucky stops to watch him work for a minute. He’s painting the bulk of a Christmas tree. Instead of the whole tree, he’s painted the card so the entirety of the painting within the gold bordered frame he’d outlined is branches. He then starts painting in tiny, delicate ornaments. A pair of dancer’s shoes and an angel, several colored balls that shine just right, a candy cane, and a handful of others Bucky can’t quite make out from the angle he’s sitting at. They’re all so very tiny and so very, very beautiful. Bucky slips his phone out of his pocket and takes a picture of Steve bent over the cards, focused on the art. He finishes his second reindeer and decides to stop for the time being.  
When Steve finally sets his brush down, Bucky says, “Why don’t we use those as invitations? Have everyone come over for Christmas dinner?” He sets down his phone, where he’s been pinning recipes for exactly that purpose, and says, “Would that be all right with you?”  
Steve nods. “Sure, Buck. What brought this on?”  
You did, Bucky wants to say. Because I want to make up for every Christmas I wasn’t by your side. Instead he says, “Christmas is about family. Why wouldn’t I want to bring yours here?”  
Steve’s face lights up. “They’re your family too, Buck,” he says.  
They watch A Charlie Brown Christmas while they wait for the paint to dry. Bucky follows a recipe for coconut curry chicken and pineapple fried rice while Steve fills out the greetings in the cards and invites them all to attend Christmas dinner at their house. They eat dinner on the sofa, working their way through The Polar Express, after which Bucky demands hot chocolate and they bump around the kitchen together, making their drinks. Bucky piles his high with whipped cream and sprinkles and pieces of crushed candy cane and marshmallows. Steve keeps his plain with cinnamon. Bucky nudges him out of the way and takes a picture of their cups together and texts it to Natasha. Her answer comes back a few seconds later: You’re adorable. Clint says Steve needs to get on your level. Bucky shows Steve the text and Steve rolls his eyes and turns on Christmas with the Kranks, which Bucky finds all too relatable. Conveniently, Steve doesn’t need the whole neighborhood to help him get ready for Christmas. He has Bucky.


	3. Day Three: Snuggling in front of the fireplace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys get a visit from Natasha. Bucky faces a few ugly truths.

Bucky has no idea where he stands with Steve. He remembers what they were before. Back in Brooklyn, they’d been best friends; more like brothers, really. And in the war, there hadn’t been time for anything but watching each other’s backs and trying to do right by one another. But Bucky had always known that in another lifetime, they could have been something more. Now it was another time and he had no idea where they stood.   
Back in the beginning, when he’d just come back, he’d clung to Steve like a limpet. Steve couldn’t really move more than 25 feet away without Bucky starting to panic and wonder if it was just a dream, if they were going to take Steve away from him again. It’s hazy, but he can vaguely remember Steve having to spoon feed him because he didn’t know how to eat through anything but a tube anymore. He can remember Steve helping him bathe because he was terrified the water would feel like when they used to hose him down. He thinks he might remember Steve having to hold him, sitting against the wall in the living room where Bucky could see everything and hear everything and ascertain Hydra wasn’t coming to get them to convince Bucky to sleep for any amount of time. He knows he used to sit up and watch Steve sleep, repeating to himself over and over that it wasn’t a dream, that Steve was really there, that he was home. He guesses that would probably kill the romance for anyone.  
He wishes they could go back to the days where it was easy, when he could flirt and say things like, “But you’re keeping the outfit, right?” and make Steve blush and laugh without worrying what it meant simply because it couldn’t mean anything. At least then he knew where they stood.   
He wonders if Steve misses the snark and banter they used to keep up, if he misses Bucky’s sarcasm. Bucky remembers their verbal sparring, remembers the way it made him feel like he was the center of Steve’s world for that moment, like they were in on a secret no one else understood. But somewhere down the line, he’d lost some of that. He can’t say he really misses it; life is too fragile to risk not saying exactly what you mean. These days, he can’t afford to take that risk. So for all he pokes fun at Steve, it’s gentler now. It’s got an extra edge of warmth that it lacked before because now they’re not trying to leap through hoops and one up each other. Now he feels more like they’re saying, Hey, I’m here. I see you. I hear you. We’re together and you’re not alone. I care about you. It’s a lot to say with gentle teasing but it’s the language Steve understands and it’s one Bucky can use without being worried the words and the bluntness will fail him.   
If he could find words that didn’t worry him, he’d ask about why Steve is so comfortable cuddling on the sofa with him when he gets nothing in return. Bucky thinks way back in the day he might’ve liked people just for the look of them. Just because liking people made him feel alive. Now he cringes away when people start pawing at each other in public or on the television. It’s not that he doesn’t like those things anymore; he thinks he might under the right circumstances, but they just don’t affect him. He can’t feel any desire for them anymore like he used to. He’s content to just lie on the sofa with his head on Steve’s chest and Steve’s hands on his back.  
Steve still feels those things; Bucky knows he does. But for some reason he’s content to just hold Bucky on the sofa instead of getting those things. They’re currently dozing in front of the fireplace; or rather, Steve is passed out beneath Bucky, slack-jawed and possibly drooling a little, and Bucky is serving as his human blanket, his ear pressed to Steve’s chest to listen to his heartbeat while he plays Candy Crush on his phone.   
A text message interrupts his game. You two look cute, it says. Open the door.  
Bucky rolls his eyes and carefully levies himself off Steve. He considers it a win when he rises without waking the blond. Steve mutters something and shifts slightly, but doesn’t stir otherwise. Bucky tosses the blue and brown crocheted throw blanket from the armchair over Steve and opens the door. Natasha steps in and kicks off her shoes before beelining for Bucky’s kitchen. Since day one, she’s made herself right at home and Bucky is content to watch her bustle around and make them both cups of tea from the box she’d brought with her. “So what’s this I hear about a Christmas Extravaganza happening here?” she asks when she’s settled.  
Bucky quirks an eyebrow at her. “That depends on where you heard it.”  
Natasha stares him down. “I’m following you on Pinterest, Bucky.”  
Of course she is. Bucky looks around. Ever since he declared their home the official grounds of World War Christmas, he’s been subtly adding more decorations. There’s garland on the counter in the inner window between the kitchen and dining/living room area and a Holly Jolly Christmas 3 wick candle on the bathroom counter. His completed Santa and reindeer dolls sit on the mantle awaiting the completion of the safety pin sleigh. He spent the morning making cinnamon dough ornaments that are currently drying in the oven and the whole house smells like warm spices. His new project, a half-finished poinsettia pot holder, lies on the coffee table in front of Steve. It feels pretty obvious, what he’s trying to do. “Did you know he spent Christmas alone?” he asks instead.  
“Yes.” One thing he loves about Natasha: she doesn’t bullshit him. Neither of them have room for that in their lives. “He drops off a poinsettia for Peggy and then he goes home and sits alone in his apartment. Is that what this is about?”  
And okay, as much as he appreciates the honesty, it hurts to hear it put in such simplified terms. It’s that kind of bluntness he tries to avoid. But he understands why she does it, why the truth in its most naked form is sometimes the easiest to process, after you’ve had your head played with like they have. He nods woodenly and stares at Steve’s sleeping form. “It’s my fault,” he says. “If I’d just reached a little higher and caught his hand, he wouldn’t have been on that damn plane alone in the first place. Then even if he did crash, he wouldn’t have…” Bucky stops and bites his lip. He can’t say the words, can’t admit out loud that Steve being alone was his fault. “He would have had me,” he says instead.   
Natasha doesn’t say it’s stupid, doesn’t argue. “One good Christmas doesn’t make up for years alone in his grief,” she says instead. “It’s not going to cure him or fix him.”  
Bucky drinks his tea. “He doesn’t need to be fixed,” he says. “Or cured. None of us do. We’ve got the hand we’ve been given and the best any of us can do is work with it and try to live better than what we got. I’m not trying to make the hurt disappear, just make the rest of his life a little warmer so the hurt is easier to manage.”   
Natasha smiles into her tea. “He’s trying to do the same for you.”  
Bucky thinks of Steve holding him on the couch with no expectations of anything more. “He already does.” He puts their empty mugs in the sink and they migrate as one to the armchair nearest the fireplace. Bucky sits down and Natasha tucks herself into his lap. He plays with her hair while she scrolls through pinterest on his phone. “You two should do this,” she says and she hands him the phone.  
Bucky looks at the ad. “I don’t know,” he says. “That sounds like a bad idea all around.”  
Natasha shrugs. “You won’t know until you try.” Bucky ponders that for a moment then nods and Nat pins it to his board. “We’re watching Love Actually,” she announces, “since you two are the most platonic romantic couple to ever exist.” They settle down to watch the movie until Natasha demands hot chocolate, at which point Bucky boots her off his lap to go make it. He whips up three mugs and carries them back out, making sure to set Steve’s close to the fireplace so it doesn’t cool as quickly. He settles back down with Natasha and they keep watching the movie. Somewhere down the line, Steve wakes up and they move to squish him between them on the sofa, cuddling close beneath the throw blanket. When Bucky sneaks a glance at him, Steve is practically glowing.   
After Natasha leaves, they lie back down. Steve nuzzles into Bucky’s side and Bucky runs his fingers through Steve’s hair. It occurs to him how very touch-starved Steve must have been for those years alone. He hugs Steve a little tighter and mentally adds “More Snuggles” to his checklist for making Steve’s Christmas perfect. He knows down to his bones that he won’t need to write that one down to remember it.


	4. Day Four: Shopping for and/or Wrapping Gifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky is a little shit. A thoughtful one, but a shit nonetheless.

Bucky does his Christmas shopping alone. His therapist isn’t far from Old Town Alexandria so when he’s finished, Bucky takes a stroll through the neighborhood. He buys Natasha a Swarovski necklace and a bottle of perfume that smells like berries and warm vanilla. He tracks down a jar of the special jasmine tea Bruce and Betty like from The Spice and Tea Exchange and a pair of His and Hers coffee mugs. He buys the Maximoff girl a Jellycat lilac hippo because he remembers her saying she still gets nightmares and the toys are meant to be soothing enough to calm babies so they also work for anxiety and panic attacks. He should know, he has one. He’s a grown ass man and he’s not ashamed to admit the olive green Bashful Dino on his bed has helped him through many a sleepless night. Having the soft plush under his human hand grounds him and dammit, he just wants the poor kid to have something nice to call her own. He gets her a locket, too, so she can put a picture of her brother inside. He’s not sure what to buy for someone like Vision. He gets him a book. Clint is easy to shop for; he buys a new chew toy for Pizza Dog, a bag of coffee, and a t-shirt that says, “I didn’t forget my hearing aids, I just wanted to ignore you.” Sure, maybe it’s a dick move but Clint is also a dick so he knows the bastard will wear it. For Thor he buys a coffee mug at a custom print shop that reads, “Whosoever Drinketh From This Vessel If They Be Worthy, Shall Possess the Power of Thor.” Again, because he’s a dick and his friends are dicks so if he can’t go sentimental, he can at least go funny. Plus, he’s already heard the coffee story at least five times and he wants to see the look on Thor’s face. He’s not sure what to get Jane since he doesn’t know her very well, but while browsing the same shop where he bought Vision’s book, he stumbled across a vintage stargazing manual. It’s not useful, but it’s pretty and it talks about Nordic myth, so he hopes she’ll appreciate the sentiment. He buys her ever-present lackey a beanie with cat ears, because Lewis seems like the type of girl who would be into that. Pepper is easy to buy for. He pre-orders a box of chocolate from her favorite shop and donates to Dog Tag Bakery in her name. He buys Tony a handful of gag shirts about science and a leak-proof coffee mug that says, “Ask Me About My Day” with a raised middle finger printed on the bottom because Stark might be an egotistical bastard, but deep down he’s as in need of loving friends who get him and care enough to think about what he might like for Christmas as the rest of them. He doesn’t bother with Sam, because he and Steve have already put their heads together and pre-ordered tickets for a brewery tour and pub crawl in January for the three of them. He buys Rhodey a War Machine teddy bear. Because, again, he’s a dick.   
The team made an agreement to keep the gifts small, but he never made that promise to Steve. He drops his bags in his car and heads to Springfield Mall. Because apparently he has no self control whatsoever.   
It’s not like he hasn’t already ordered gifts for Steve on Amazon. He’d owned Black Friday. He’d made Cyber Monday cry. But that was before he realized how utterly fucking lonely his best friend had been and how completely shitty a friend he’d been for not noticing. Now? Now he needed to up the fucking ante. It was game on. It was time to make Christmas shopping his bitch.  
Which is how Bucky ends up leaving the mall with several pairs of novelty socks, two new sweaters, the entire Criminal Minds box set, a Build-a-Bear dressed as Captain America, and more stocking stuffers than he knows what to do with.   
They don’t even have stockings yet.   
He stashes the bags in the backseat of his car and waits until he’s sure Steve’s out of the house before he brings them up to his room. He stuffs them into his closet and leaves them behind along with the Amazon boxes containing his other gifts. Then he brings in everyone else’s presents and sets them down in the living room alongside the huge bag of wrapping paper and gift boxes he’d picked up at Target on his way out of the mall. Steve comes home to find him surrounded by a mountain of wrapping paper. He takes in the scene quietly, snaps a picture on his phone of Bucky bent over the wrapping paper with a serious expression, and silently gets his own packages from his room to wrap by Bucky’s side. He queues up Marry Me for Christmas and they wrap in silence while the movie plays in the background. Steve makes sure to match Bucky’s wrapping paper assignments so everyone’s gifts are wrapped in the same paper. When they’re done, Bucky stuffs the scraps in a trash bag and flops down on the couch. He tugs Steve down until Steve relents and rests his head on Bucky’s thigh. Bucky tangles his fingers in Steve’s hair, scratching his head gently. Steve moans embarrassingly loudly.   
Bucky smirks down at him. “You all right down there, punk?” He keeps the motion up, gently scraping his nails against Steve’s scalp.  
Steve’s eyelids are drooping. “Shaddup, jerk,” he mumbles. He’s out cold by the time the credits roll. Bucky smiles and moves on to I’ll Be Home for Christmas.

At around five, he tries to slide away but Steve’s got Bucky’s jeans clenched in one fist and he whines when Bucky tries to move. Bucky chuckles. “Stevie, I’ve got to get up and make dinner,” he said softly. “Come on, let me up.” He rubs his thumb over Steve’s knuckles until his hand relaxes.  
Steve’s been sleeping more lately. It’s not something Bucky would have noticed if he weren’t looking for it, but now that he’s paying attention, the signs of Steve’s distress are everywhere. They’re in the sleepless nights suddenly switching to long cat naps during movies. They’re in the way he’s stopped spending whole afternoons alone in their pseudo-gym in the basement. The signs are clear as day now that he knows to look.  
He’d always thought Steve was happy, or at least happy enough. Shows what he knows. Steve’s always been stoic, but he was never a brick wall when they were kids. He had warmth. Now the more Bucky looks at him, the more he realizes part of Steve never came out of the ice. Now that Bucky’s made it his personal mission to thaw that part of Steve out to join the rest of him, Bucky realizes the long road they’ve got ahead of them.   
Steve mumbles something as Bucky finally gets free. He makes his way to the kitchen to get started on a 30 minute white chicken chili he’s been dying to try. It’s simmering when Steve shuffles in and burries his face in Bucky’s neck. Bucky leans back into Steve’s chest. “You feel better now?” he asks.   
Steve hums. “Would have been better if I hadn’t been ditched on the sofa.”  
Bucky rolls his eyes. “Shut up, I made you food.” He frees himself to throw an arm around Steve, who leans into him. The kid is just so damn tactile these days, it makes Bucky ache. Not that Steve would ever admit it. If he said anything, if he even jokingly mentioned the way Steve seems to need to put his hand over everyone’s hearts while he’s laughing, he knows it would stop and Steve would restrain and isolate himself and that’s not what Bucky wants at all. So Bucky doesn’t say anything, just like the rest of the team will never mention it. He lets Steve fuck with him by undoing his bun and flicking pieces of leftover bell pepper at Bucky and tries to pretend it doesn’t remind him of a kid vying for attention. Because that would be heartbreaking to think about. He pops the cornbread in the oven and sets the timer. “I thought we’d paint ornaments tonight,” he says, leaning on the counter. “What do you think?”  
Steve smirks. “Dibs on the penguin.”  
Bucky glares at him. “I will fight you for that penguin, Rogers. Pooky is mine.”

He lets Steve have the damn penguin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pooky the Penguin is solely owned by [St. Fang of Boredom](http://stfangofboredom.tumblr.com/). Her works, which actually inspired me to start writing fic when I was an itty bitty (so many years ago, oh goodness), are located [here.](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1209403/St-Fang-of-Boredom) For the story of Pooky, check her out.


	5. Day Five: Buying the Christmas Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They get a tree. Three superheroes and a dog tag along.

As it turns out, there are an awful lot of places to chop down your own Christmas tree in the DC area.   
Bucky waves his phone in Sam’s face. They’ve been out of their respective group sessions-the one Sam leads and the one Bucky attends-for less than five minutes and Sam already has damned white boys from the last century shoving technology in his face. Can’t get five minutes of peace. But Bucky’s practically vibrating with excitement when he says, “Oh yeah. We’re going.”   
They’re on the road less than an hour later. The whole lot of them are stuffed into Bucky’s mom car, Bucky and Sam up front because, as Sam had declared when they’d gotten in, if he had to put up with white boy nonsense on his afternoon off, he was sure as hell getting the chair with a seat warmer. Steve is tucked between Nat and Clint and hasn’t complained once about his long legs or the shaggy dog Clint had introduced as "Pizza Dog" and Natasha had called "Lucky" sprawled across his lap, seemingly content to let his teammates use him as a footrest, pillow, and warm lap. Sam’s pretty sure Bucky said something to them about Steve’s recent tactility.   
Bucky buys them all coffee at a drive through Starbucks and Sam succeeds in not laughing when Bucky opens his pinterest and reads off, “a venti white hot chocolate with one pump gingerbread syrup, made with eggnog, extra whip with cinnamon and chocolate shavings on top.” Clint snorts and calls him the Christmas Princess. Barnes shoves the cup Barton’s way and Barton makes them drive back through to get another one with a quad shot. He drinks both that and his previous order within ten minutes. Sam tries and fails not to feel worried by that.   
They hold a joking debate about the status of the red cup on their way to the tree farm. No one cares about the lack of holiday greeting, everyone but Steve misses the snowflakes. Steve announces, completely straight-faced, that they should add a penguin named Pooky to the cup. Barnes glares at him in the rearview mirror and okay, Sam is not touching that. He does not want to know what kind of bullshit they got themselves into this time.   
They make it down to Nokesville by 10:30. There’s a table with free hot cider and they’re given a handsaw and sent out into the fields. While they wander, they chatter about the different types available and their pros and cons. Sam admits he buys his tree at Lowes so he can get a Noble Fir, which is his grandma’s favorite. Natasha has no opinion and Barton asks if the cardboard pop out tree from the back of his cereal box counts. “That’s all I can have!” he argues when they protest. “Lucky eats the ornaments on real trees. Besides, then I’d have to put it up and take it down all by myself while Kate watched and laughed and that’s just depressing, being laughed at by a kid.” They laugh and Steve quietly admits he likes the natural look of the white pines they’ve been passing. So Barnes declares they’re getting a white pine.   
Barnes takes a long-ass time to pick a Christmas tree. He drags them to every single damn white pine on the farm, weighing the pros and cons of each. Every time he starts to eye a tree, he finds something wrong with it. Sam wants to be annoyed, but he overhears Bucky muttering to Natasha, whispering, “It has to be perfect,” and it’s probably the saddest thing Sam’s heard him say all season.   
Sam strolls casually over to Steve’s side. “Hey man,” he says lowly. “Maybe you should pick the tree.”  
“Oh I,” Steve startles. “No, Bucky wanted to do this, he should get to pick the tree he wants.”   
They’re both idiots. But there’s no way in hell Sam is going to be the one to give up Bucky’s game; he likes not sleeping with both eyes open too damn much for that. Instead he says, “Your boy seems a little…overwhelmed. I bet he’d be grateful for your opinion. Besides, I kind of got the vibe he wanted this to be a you-two thing and we were all just along for the ride.”  
“I was definitely just along for the ride,” Barton says from behind them. “But since your car can hold two trees, I’m getting one for Nat’s apartment.” The guy takes off like a shot. “Hey Nat,” they hear him shout from a few rows over. “I like this one! We should get this one!”  
Natasha shouts something in Russian and Bucky snorts. Sam wanders a few feet away, under the guise of checking his phone. Steve leads Barnes over to a white pine with a full shape that’s at least seven and a half feet tall. “I like this one,” he says like he’s admitting a secret. “What do you think?”  
Barnes doesn’t even look at the tree; he’s so busy beaming at Steve. “It’s perfect.”

They drop Natasha, Clint, and Clint's dog off with their noble spruce so Clint can haul it up three flights of stairs to Natasha’s DC apartment. As they pull away, they hear her say, “Oh no. You wanted it, you’re doing the work.” Sam glances in the mirror and sees her helping him anyway.  
Back in Alexandria, he helps Bucky clear away the boxes of ornaments from the corner where they’re putting their tree. Steve carries the tree in on his own, happy as a clam, and holds it steady while Bucky tightens the screws on the stand. Sam sprawls in an armchair, directing them until it’s straight. When it’s done and Bucky is upstairs looking for the tree skirt they’d purchased, Steve asks, “Did you want to-”  
“Oh no.” Sam shakes his head. “I am not helping y’all decorate your first Christmas tree since the 30’s; that is way too much sexual tension for me. You two have fun building your little winter wonder-love nest on your own time. What I will do, is go raid your fridge for beer and change your life with a Christmas movie I know you haven’t seen yet.”  
“There’s no tension,” Steve says. “Bucky doesn’t feel that way.”  
Jesus, Lord Almighty, help his stupid white friends see past their own asses. He can’t counsel them both by himself. He can’t get Barnes to see Steve would be happy with nothing but a party popper if it was from Barnes and he can’t make Steve see Bucky’s frankly co-dependent levels of devotion. He says a silent prayer that someone will knock their heads together so they understand they’re both fools in love who need to get it together for everyone’s sakes. “Maybe you should ask him about that, not make assumptions.” He gets out three beers.  
“Hey,” Bucky says when he comes downstairs, shimmery gold tree skirt in hand. “You staying for dinner?”  
Sam hands him one of the open beers. “It’s time you discover the magic of This Christmas. Sit your ass down and learn.”  
Bucky and Steve dominate the couch and Sam exiles himself to the safety of the armchair. It’s not that it bothers him; Steve just looks so damn content halfway in Bucky’s lap and Sam has no interest in intruding on that. There’s only so much fluff and affection he can handle in one day, attractive super soldiers notwithstanding. He snaps a picture of them and texts it to the other Avengers with the caption, **Ten bucks says they kiss by Christmas morning.**  
He gets a response back almost instantly. **Twenty for them kissing within the next three days.**   
Another reply from Tony follows it. **Do not let the scary redhead make bets! She cheats!!**  
A few more texts arrive. Thor says he too, thinks Barnes and Rogers should make even merrier their festivities and oh god, he just got holiday themed sex euphemisms sent to his phone by a Norse god. How is this his life? Pepper sends out a request for any other photos of the pair of them; something to do with their Christmas gift. Clint says if they don’t kiss by New Years, he’s all for locking them in a closet with sex pollen.  
Sam watches the two lovebirds on the sofa get caught up in one of the best family Christmas movies of all time. **Romanov,** he sends back, **you’ve got yourself a deal.**


	6. Day Six: Decorating the Christmas Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They decorate the tree. Bucky has a few things to say about modern literature.

They definitely bought too many ornaments.

Bucky realizes this as soon as they start unpacking the bags to actually look at what they have. It's the very next morning, day six of Bucky's World War Christmas and _Jesus lord almighty they have too many Christmas ornaments._ There's a three foot tall tube of red and green shatter-proof ornaments they picked up at Target, the box of Swarovski figurines and at least a dozen boxes of other ornaments. Not to mention the two bags full of individual ornaments, two dozen candy canes, the bags of red, green, and gold tinsel, the lights, and the handmade ones they've been slowly working on over the past couple of days. Bucky does the math while Steve is sorting the ornaments and realizes they have close to 600 ornaments scattered across their floor. He picks up a red quilted star decorated with a length of burlap and a sign that reads 'Noel' and asks, "Do you think we maybe overdid it?"

Steve looks from the tree to the sea of boxes at their feet and bends down to pick up a box of ten ornaments depicting a forest scene in gold and white made out of the thinnest glass Bucky's ever seen. "Nah," Steve says. "We'll figure something out." He opens one of the bags and dumps out the rustic-style ornaments they'd picked out at Michaels. "Let's start with the best and work down to the basic, use the solid colors as fillers," he suggests.

Bucky picks up a white deer from the pile. "Only if we name this James," he says seriously.

Steve rolls his eyes. "We are not naming an ornament after you, Bucky."

Bucky's eyes go wide. "James _Potter_ , Steve," he says. When Steve doesn't give any indication he knows what Bucky is talking about, Bucky huffs and turns on the television to queue up the first Harry Potter movie. "How do I have more pop culture education than you?" Bucky asks. "How have you been here this long and missed Harry Potter? Were you hiding under a rock?" And then he freezes for half a second because _yeah, that's basically what Steve had been doing._ He forces himself to unfreeze and says, "The Harry Potter series is everywhere, Steve; I can't believe it's not on your list."

Steve frisbees a star made out of woven sticks and decorated with plastic holly at the back of Bucky's head. Bucky catches it and flings it back. "Stop using the ornaments as artillery and put some on our damn tree, Rogers," he says. Steve looks pleased and it's not until Bucky thinks back, goes over the way he said the words _our tree_ that he realizes why Steve is smiling at him like that. The movie is starting so Bucky decides to lead by example and starts by hanging Pooky the Penguin near the top of the tree. Steve clips every bird they bought to the upper branches, adding the glass and porcelain balls in pure white to the bottom, like snow drifts. Bucky gets the idea and starts to fill in the center space with color until their tree is one big forest, with animals poking out of the lower branches and colored balls centered like low-hanging fruit. The other ornaments, the more unique ones, are scattered throughout the tree like hidden treasures in a search-and-find picture. Bucky picks up the box of crystal figures and holds up a crystal angel and nestles her between a gold ball and a clip-on holly branch. Steve comes up behind him with a reindeer and rests his hand on Bucky's hip while he hangs the little animal beside an ornament shaped like a snow boot. Bucky leans back against Steve and smiles. "You promised me a tree topper," he says. "I see no topper."

Steve shakes his head. "You'll have to wait for it," he says. "But it'll be here before Chirstmas, don't worry."

  


The second Harry Potter movie has been playing in the background for some time. Steve isn't overly emotionally invested in it, not like Bucky. In fact, he doesn't seem to care much at all. "They're cute," he says.

_"Cute?"_ Bucky tries not to feel insulted. "Steve, these movies are pain and death and sorrow. The books are even worse."

Steve raises his eyebrows at Bucky. "Pain and sorrow and death? Bucky, they're about child wizards at a school without pencils."

And okay, yes, Bucky's bothered by that, too. The whole world is bothered by that, according to the internet. But that's not the point. "His parents died fighting to stop a war that already happened. A war we fought in. Segregation and killing just because someone was different; his parents died for that. James Potter took on Lord Voldemort unarmed to save his wife and child. Lily Evans died to keep her son alive. And in return their son was dropped on the doorstep of an abusive home by a man who used isolation techniques to win a child's loyalty. A man who continued to manipulate him into the child soldier he wanted for all the boy's life. That boy lost every bit of love he could have had all before he could talk. Dumbledore let Sirius be framed because it kept Harry isolated from wizards and in a home where he felt no affection so that making friends would feel like a fucking gift. Harry went to war alongside other children to fight the same battles we did and he won. Because Voldemort was just a man at the end. Like Hitler. Like Pierce and the rest. That kid is fucked for the rest of his life because he was molded into the kind of soldier that took it upon himself to save everyone. Because he had a good heart and people used him." Bucky stops to take a deep breath and okay, maybe he got a little emotionally invested when he first read these books. Maybe he saw a little of himself and Steve in them.

Steve doesn't say anything at first. It's not like he could understand most of it; they haven't gotten there yet. But he watches Bucky seriously for a moment, like he's thinking something over. "Okay," he says. "I believe you. Pain and sorrow and death."

Bucky tucks his feet up on the sofa. "You have to read the books," he declares.

Steve comes to sit by him. "I'll put them on my list." He drags the throw blanket over their laps and Bucky leans into him. "You feel pretty strongly about these."

"Don't even get me started on Hunger Games," he says. They lapse into silence for a moment. "I don't want to spoil it for you," Bucky says slowly. "But there's a part in one of the books where Harry has to make the choice to keep living. He could die and no one would know he let go and gave up; no one would know to be angry with him. Instead, he chooses to keep living. He chooses to get back up and fight; even when it would be so much easier to let go, so much easier to let someone else fight for once and to choose not to live with the consequences of war any longer. I guess...I guess I didn't know I wanted to make the same choice until I read those books."

Steve doesn't say anything. He rubs Bucky's shoulder and they sit curled together on the sofa. "What's the Hunger Games?" Steve asks finally.

Bucky sits up. "You were sheltered from those for a reason," he says. "Skip those ones." Steve raises an eyebrow and Bucky lays his metal hand on Steve's chest and catches Steve's gaze. "Steve." His voice is gentle now. "I'm asking you to leave those ones alone. For me. Please?"

Steve nods and Bucky breathes a sigh of relief. He's not sure he could handle the kinds of correlations Steve would make between the books and reality. He's not sure he'd be able to sweep up the pieces of Steve that story would make. He's not really sure he's able to sweep up the pieces that are already here.

Leaning together on the sofa, it's a lot easier to see the ghosts that linger in their bodies. Bucky's not sure exactly when he realized the old him wasn't coming back, but he's known for a good long while that the young man who fell from a train in the 40's died in that day in the alps. He knows the Steve Rogers who'd hugged Bucky that last night at the expo died in the ice, but he's pretty sure the process started the minute he stepped into Stark's box. He's pretty sure he knew that during the war, too. There's a whole legion of ghosts living in their skin and their house and not a single one they can ever resurrect or even exorcise. They're going to live with the ghosts of two boys from Brooklyn for the rest of their lives.

He finds himself pondering a line from Doctor Who about the last Star Whale: "All that pain and misery and loneliness, and it just made it kind." He thinks of the way Steve stopped to tell the manager at Michaels a checkout clerk did well. He thinks of the way Steve has built a family for himself and the way he bears his suffering in silence. He thinks of that day in Sokovia, of watching on the television and realizing all at once that Steve wasn't going to get off that rock until the fight was over. A shudder runs through him. All that time alone and this new Steve is so kind, so loving and tactile and a million lightyears away from the kid who could get by on his own.

Bucky shifts suddenly, startling Steve. He rolls onto his knees and faces Steve, drawing him closer until their foreheads are pressed together and they're sharing breath, sharing space, sharing the epic novels of words neither of them know how to say. Steve's eyes sink closed and he leans into Bucky's touch. He's not sure how long they stay there, but afterwards, Bucky leans back against Steve and Steve undoes Bucky's bun and runs his fingers through Bucky's hair. Bucky smiles at the gesture and uses his phone to order the box set of the Harry Potter books on Amazon.


	7. Day Seven: Mistletoe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mistletoe brings out honesty, as it turns out. It also works in their favor.

He's not even really aware he's having a nightmare until he wakes up. The cold sweat and panicky breaths are a solid indicator, along with the lasting impression of wandering through an icy tundra calling for Steve and being left with the hollowed out, soulless body that was the version of Steve he'd seen on the helicarrier, the one with nothing left to live for. It's what he gets for pondering their pasts last night. He reaches out for Sheldon and runs his human hand over the dinosaur's plush coat, squeezing the doll carefully with his cybernetic arm to remind himself how gentle Stark's model can be. It's already nearly five a.m. so Bucky drags his ass out of bed and into the shower. He doesn't like them as much as baths, but the genlte rainfall from his showerhead is nothing like the hoses Hydra used. Steve, on the other hand, can't stand baths. Bucky's not sure if it's the memory of scrubbing their skin raw with cheap soap while sitting in a few inches of tepid water as kids or if it's something to do with being submerged when he crashed the plane, but either way, Steve's not a fan. It's why he took the bedroom with the walk-in shower in the bathroom. The thing's a damn sauna and Steve uses it for exactly that purpose.

In fact...

There's a lot of things they have, now that they're in the future. Boundaries isn't one of them. Bucky kicks the door to Steve's bathroom open and wrenches the shower door open shouting, "Surprise, motherfucker!" He fires off several nerf bullets, steals Steve's towel, and books it out of the bathroom again, slamming every door he can on the way in an attempt to slow Steve down that ultimately fails.

They end up wrestling on the kitchen floor, Bucky in nothing but his boxers and Steve completely in the nude trying to wrangle his towel and the nerf gun from Bucky's hands. They're both laughing hysterically and Bucky kicks his knees up to wrap around Steve's chest while he flips them so he can pin Steve with his legs once he succeeds. Bucky crows victory until Steve manages to flip them again and jams his hands into Bucky's sides, tickling him until Bucky's kicking his feet and begging him to stop.

"Uncle, you fucker, uncle! Uncle!" Bucky gasps. "Jesus H. Christ, Steve, just take the damn towel." He hands Steve his towel. They're both damp and the floor is slick and they haven't quite caught their breath from laughing. They lean against each other, shoulder to shoulder, and Steve drapes the towel over his lap.

Steve elbows him in the ribs. "Dick."

"I'm not interrupting something; am I, boys?" Natasha's voice makes him flinch. He thinks he might have subconciously noticed her and determined her not to be a threat, but he's still surprised to hear her speak up.

Steve stands up and wraps the towel around his waist, absolutely shameless about Natasha seeing their display. He helps Bucky stand up and says, "Since you broke in before nine, you get to make the coffee." His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles at Bucky and hip checks him. "Let's go put some clothes on."

"Don't do anything on my account," Natasha says. "Your naked body is as ineffective to me as any other, Steven."

Steve smirks. "Nah, it's Bucky's delicate sensibilities we have to worry about. Wouldn't want him thinking we only keep him around for the view."

And Bucky's...Bucky's not sure what to make of that. "Go put your damn pants on, Rogers," he says. Steve leaves the room, still chuckling and swinging the nerf gun on one finger.

Natasha eyes him from her place by the coffee pot. "Don't look at me," she says. "I'm not qualified to give you relationship advice."

"As a disengaged party, you might be the most qualified," Bucky says. "You can see what the rest of us can't."

Natasha sits on the counter and crosses her ankles. "Let me ask you something, Barnes," she says. "Did you feel anything when you two were rolling around on the ground like pornographic wrestlers?"

"I-" Bucky starts. "No." No, he didn't. Nothing at all.

Natasha leans forward. "Most men," she says, "would have felt something."

Bucky sees where she's going with this immediately. "No. Steve didn't-his-" Bucky gestures to his lap.

Natasha is looking at him like he's the biggest idiot on the planet. "He felt something, Barnes. You're getting rusty if you can't pick up on lust as obvious as that anymore." She leans forward on her elbows. "But he didn't do anything about it, did he?" When Bucky doesn't answer, she raises her eyebrows and keeps waiting.

"No," Bucky says at last. "He didn't do anything at all."

"And he's not going to," Natasha says. "Steve knows how you feel about all that; you're more obvious in what interest you're lacking than Stark is in advertising his overabundance. You want my opinion? He loves you and he'll take whatever you've got to offer."

Bucky purses his lips. "I thought love was for children."

Natasha looks pointedly at the wet spot on the floor says nothing. Point taken.

"It's not that I can't offer it," Bucky says. "It's that I could go the rest of my life without it and never once miss it."

Natasha gets off the counter and makes herself a cup of coffee. "I could go the rest of my life without having to use the words "I love you" to communicate loyalty and affection. Conveniently, I intend to. Barton tells me he loves me at least once a month without any expectation of hearing it in return because he knows I don't think that way or feel something that could be attached to that word. It's never stopped him."

Bucky understands what she's saying, but that doesn't mean he has to agree one hundred percent. "We'll see," he says and then he gets up to go put on a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie. It just feels like a pajama day.

  


They're on the sofa, Natasha having liberated him of a shirt and Steve of a pair of sweatpants, when Sam and Clint arrive with their arms loaded with pizza and beer. Bucky wasn't actually expecting them, but why would any of their friends need to call ahead? The avengers are their _family._ No call ahead is required.

Bucky crawls out of Steve's lap and heads to the kitchen to make snacks and hot chocolate. Because he's a good host, dammit. He opens pinterest on his StarkPad and gets out the ingredients for eggless cookie dough and starts popcorn. He can hear rustling in the living room and the sounds of a few people giggling. He puts together several mugs of cocoa and balances them on a TV tray to carry out. Every single one but Steve's is loaded high with marshmallows, whipped cream, sprinkles, chocolate shavings, and a sprinkle of cinnamon, and garnished with a candy cane from the box in the kitchen. Steve's is plain with cinnamon, but Bucky stirs in extra chocolate to make it the way Steve really likes it. He's almost done when Natasha hears, "Hey Bucky, come out here."

Bucky heads toward the archway leading into the other space right as he hears Steve say, "I'll go help him." They meet in the middle, nearly crashing into one another as they both try to pass through the archway.

"Need any help?" Steve asks.

"Hold on there, Rogers," Natasha says. "Looks like you two have to pay the toll." They look up and see a sprig of misteltoe hanging from the doorway. Bucky shoots Natasha a look that can only be translated as murder in cold blood. She smirks and drapes her feet across Clint's lap. It's only then that he notices the huge pillow fort that's been constructed in his living room. He's not sure how they erected it without alerting him since nearly every blanket in the house seems to be contributing to the structure, but it makes their living room look homey.

And Bucky is totally letting himself get distracted. "Uh," he starts.

Steve tilts his head and drops a peck on the corner of Bucky's mouth. "Merry Christmas, Buck," he says. He puts his hands on Bucky's shoulders and spins them so he's the one in the kitchen. "I'll carry the tray."

Bucky stands there, numb for a second. He doesn't run; he calmly walks upstairs and strips his bed of blankets and pillows. He's trying to figure out how if he should bring the mattress downstairs when Clint raps on his door. "You good, man?"

Bucky nods. "Just processing. And plotting the use of a mattress."

Clint shrugs. "Steve's is the floor. We could use yours as a wall or added space." He bundles the blankets and pillows together and chucks them down the stairs, calling out "Fire in the hole!" He comes back and hoists one side of the mattress. "It doesn't have to mean anything if you don't want it to."

Bucky's still not sure what he wants it to mean so he shrugs and grabs the other side of the mattress. "I'll think about it," he promises.

He gets all of five minutes to think about it. Sam and Clint are bickering in the living room about the placement of Bucky's mattress so Bucky busies himself with getting enough spoons for the cookie dough. Steve comes into the kitchen and stands near the table. He's watching Bucky carefully when he says, "If I made you uncomfortable-"

"No." Bucky shakes his head. "No, it's not that at all." Steve quirks an eyebrow at him and Bucky takes a deep breath. "We're okay," he says. "But I can't..." He stops and turns to stare at the pillow fort, which has gone eerily silent. He walks back into the room, takes the fluffiest blanket and their mugs of hot chocolate and says, "You three have no shame." He gets three smirks in response.

Steve is waiting in the kitchen. "Downstairs?" he suggests. Bucky nods.

Their basement is about the size of the master bedroom. There's a treadmill and a weight bench as well as two punching bags and a mat for sparring. Bucky spreads the blanket on the carpet and Steve sits on the weight bench with his hot chocolate. Steve gestures for Bucky to start and Bucky studies the rim of his mug while he collects his thoughts. Finally, he says, "I don't want to have sex with you." It's too abrupt and too close to that brutal honesty he's been trying to avoid. "I don't _not_ want to have sex with you," he adds, "but it's not something I'm looking for. It's not something I'm interested in. I know I used to be a ladies man and-"

"That's not actually true," Steve interrupts. "Sorry," he adds when Bucky looks up, startled. "It's just-you took lots of women out, sure. But you took them dancing. You went to the movies and street fairs and diners. There was very little necking involved. I think it was a rare night you even kissed a girl." He looks up at Bucky. "You were always about having fun. Never seemed to mind not ending the night in something more." He sets his mug on the floor and leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "I'm not saying what you did or didn't feel, just sharing what I saw. Bucky, I don't need any more than this. I've got you and we're having a good time and...you make me happy." Steve quirks his mouth into a half-smile. "I don't need anything else."

Bucky bites his lip. "I _want_ to be able to give you something else," he says. "And I think-I keep thinking maybe I could, but I just don't feel anything like that. I can't give you more than this and you say you don't care, but I might never want it...ever. You deserve someone who can give you that. Who'll want more." He sees Steve open his mouth to argue and continues before Steve gets the opportunity. "I'm not sure about any more than what we've got," he admits. "I don't know if I'll ever be...well."

Steve stands up and moves to sit by Bucky. He wraps an arm around Bucky's waist. "I said I didn't need more, Buck. I meant it." He kisses Bucky's temple. The motion is so gentle Bucky could've missed it if he hadn't been paying attention. "What we've got," Steve says. "It's good."

They stand up and go back upstairs. Steve lounges on the mattresses with Bucky sprawled over his chest. One of his hands is in Bucky's hair, the other is dangerously low on Bucky's waist. But it doesn't feel like anything more than what it is. Bucky smiles and nuzzles into Steve. They share space and snacks for the entire movie marathon and when the others offer to help clean up, they both eye the giant bed on their floor with smiles and tell everyone to leave it. They sleep in the living room that night, the Christmas lights twinkling and the TV flickering with A Christmas Story. Bucky drifts off entangled in Steve.

  


Before they let him out of the car, Sam hands Natasha twenty dollars. Clint snorts. "I could have told you not to bet with her unless you intended to lose."

Sam raises his eyebrows. "What makes you think I had any intention of winning? Natasha gets results; this is her compensation." He lets himself into his house and waves. Twenty dollars well spent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone wants to talk Pan Pre-war Bucky or Demi post-tws Bucky with me, my tumblr is [ here.](http://captain-trashmerica.tumblr.com/)


	8. Day Eight: Snowmen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys build snowmen. It's both harder and safer than you'd expect.

There are two reasons Bucky doesn't bother with the building of an actual snowman. The first, most obvious reason is that his Christmas quest is meant to make Steve happy, not traumatise either of them. The second reason is that they live in NoVa. It generally doesn't snow until late February to early March, save for blizzard years. But it's okay. Bucky has a Pin for that.

He summons Steve up from their gym with eggnog waffles with cinnamon whipped cream and hot coffee. Despite their past few days of absolute chaos in Bucky's scramble to start compensating for Steve's earlier, shitty Christmases, they generally like to keep breakfast quiet. Steve keeps one earbud in, listening to a podcast of the news. Bucky surfs the web and plays more Candy Crush. It's not that he lacks interest in public affairs, but he had a hand in them for enough years that he's a little more than done with anything where someone starts by saying "Good morning" and then proceeds to tell you why it isn't.

Besides, he's on level 245 of Candy Crush and if he's going to catch up to Clint's roommate he needs to work a little harder. Kate told him there are more than 2,000 levels and she's on 631. He's got work to do.

After breakfast, they clean up and Bucky opens the dishwasher to unload the glass mason jars he'd spent the night's washer run sterilizing. "Unpack that bag," he instructs Steve, nodding his head toward the plastic bag on the counter. He opens the blog post from Pinterest on his phone and gets out a mixing bowl. "And start following this recipe. I'll get everything organized and get the glue gun. After making a note on the whiteboard to buy more gluesticks, as they're only eight days into the month and have just three left, Bucky sorts the jars into three even piles. "Do you want to fill or do you want to glue?" Bucky asks.

Steve looks at the picture. What they're building are technically snowmen, at least in appearance. Steve eyes the foam hats, strips of scrap material, googly eyes, buttons, and foam pieces and then eyes the bowl of cocoa and bags of marshmallows and peppermint rounds. "Divide and conquer?" he offers finally. Bucky nods. Steve drags the bag of peppermints over to himself and starts filling all the jars in one pile. Bucky gets to work on the bowl of cocoa mix.

It's a few minutes before Steve seems to notice what Bucky has been humming. He glances over and smirks slightly. Bucky takes that as an indication of encouragement and starts the song over, singing lowly. "I don't want a lot for Christmas; there is just one thing I need. I don't care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree. I don't need to hang my stocking there upon the fireplace. Santa Claus won't make me happy with a toy on Christmas Day. I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know. Make my wish come true. All I want for Christmas is you!" Steve is laughing now, so Bucky holds up the ladel like a microphone and sings, "You, baby! I don't ask for much this Christmas; I won't even wish for snow. I'm just gonna keep on waiting underneath the mistletoe. I won't make a list and send it to the Northpole for Saint Nick; I won't even stay up late to hear those magic reindeer click. I just want you here tonight holding on to me so tight. What more can I do? Baby, all I want for Christmas is you! You, baby!"

Steve is practically doubled over laughing now. Bucky grins. He supposes it's lucky Mariah Carey has the most overplayed song of Christmas; he's had eight days to learn the words. He keeps singing while using his StarkPad to queue up Christmas music. "Oh all the lights are shining so brightly everywhere and the sound of children laughing fills the air. And everyone is singing; I hear those sleigh bells ringing! Santa won't you bring me the one I really need, I'm saying please bring my baby to me! I don't want a lot for Christmas; this is all I"m asking for. I just wanna see my baby standing right outside my door. I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know. Make my wish come true. Baby, all I want for Christmas is you!" Bucky leaps up and grabs Steve by the hand and drags him to his feet. "Come on, we're dancing."

Steve tries to sit back down. "Buck, we just started. And I still can't dance."

"Yes you can," Bucky says. He tugs harder on Steve's hand. "Come on, Stevie. Up." He smiles as Steve clambers to his feet. "Just one song," he promises and leans over to hit the play button.

Bucky's a bastard, sometimes. He knows there are parts of him that are the funny kind of asshole who pokes at his friends by getting them funny Christmas gifts and parts of him that are the meanest bastard this side of anywhere. He tries his best to avoid letting those latter parts of himself out into the light of day and these days they only sneak out on his really bad days. And there are parts of him that will always be the Soldier. Not the asset, though that's there too. But the soldier-not Hydra's name for him but the one who saw war, who gunned down boys just like himself with very little remorse because he was doing what he had to. The part of him that Hydra didn't have to make because it already existed. He'll never say it; not to Steve or his therapist or anyone, but the part that was willing to kill and feel so little remorse has existed in him for a lot longer than he was with Hydra. He thinks putting his own people first and not feeling guilt for anyone who got in the way of protecting his own has always been there. Yeah, Bucky's a bastard sometimes. But not to his best guy. To his best guy, he tries to give only smiles and good memories. That's why, even though the music grates on his nerves sometimes because it's attached to a memory he knows is there but can't get back, the song he plays is the Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby singing Jingle Bells.

The widening of Steve's eyes as the opening bars play is worth the discomfort under his skin at the missing memory. Bucky whirls Steve around a few times, slower than the song calls for. Steve's more graceful now than he gives himself credit for but Bucky's having fun dragging him round the kitchen at a slow pace. "See, this ain't so bad," he says.

Steve has a miniscule grin on his face. "You're a terrible singer," he says.

"Well fuck you too," Bucky drawls. Then, after a moment, "Was it always that way?"

Steve snorts. "Don't worry, you didn't get worse with age. You've always been tone deaf, Buck."

Bucky squawks. "I'm not even thirty, Rogers, watch it." And isn't that the crux of it? How is it they're so young? He had been mere weeks from his twenty-eighth birthday the day he fell from the train in the Alps. He's not sure how long, chronologically, he spent out of the ice with Hydra, but JARVIS knows and so do the doctors, he's sure. Or at least they have a rough estimation available based on his DNA. But who really cares? He died at almost twenty-eight and that's how old he's sticking with. Steve can shove it up his ass if he wants to argue.

"Think you might've hit a birthday out in the field, Buck," Steve says as they spin past the kitchen window.

"Shove it, Rogers," Bucky growls.

Steve is chuckling now. "Thought only women lied about their age," he says.

Bucky steps on his toes. "Be nice to me, I'm a traumatized veteran."

Steve laughs and leans his forehead against Bucky's. "I'm always nice to you," he says.

The song is over and Celine Dion is singing Feliz Navidad. Bucky holds his breath. There are so many things he wants to say but doesn't have the words for. Like, _I used to think we'd grow old together as neighbors and raise our kids to be friends like us but now I want to grow old with you and maybe get a cat or something._ Things that don't have a meaning outside _You. Just you._ He feels like his skin is humming where Steve's arms are around him. It's nice; warm like a blanket or a summer day, and comfortable, like sitting by the waves on the beach. If he closed his eyes, he thinks he'd feel something like the way laughter feels at four a.m. They stay like that for a moment and Bucky feels like the world has gone quiet.

Steve presses a chaste, closed-mouth kiss of the most innocent kind to his lips. It's sweet and friendly, affectionate and lacking anything but the action itself. Bucky smiles. Steve pulls away and says, "I'm doing the cocoa now. You start the marshmallows."

Bucky rolls his eyes. "Oh sure, have the fella with the metal arm handling the sticky candy."

"You'll be fine," Steve says. "I believe in you."

Bucky flings a marshmallow at him in retaliation. Just to be a dick, he's certain, Steve catches it and pops it in his mouth.

  


When all is said and done and the jars are filled, they start putting them together. Filling the jars is one thing; getting them to stick together is a whole other trial. It's due to their quick reflexes that none break. "What are these even for?" Steve asks as he finally manages to seal a jar to the lid below it.

Bucky wraps a piece of cloth around its "neck" like a scarf and hot-glues it in place. "Hand them out to the neighbors," he says. "Or dump them all at the HOA office with a vaguely menacing note inviting them all to some winter cheer so they worry about poison."

"Could drop them at the VA," Steve offers.

"Doing Christmas cookies for that," Bucky says. "Stick a hat on him." He hands over the glue gun and goes back to attaching the next set of jars to each other.

"Bucky," and Steve's voice sounds way too casual, "exactly how many more days of holiday stuff do you have planned?"

"How many days are there until Christmas?" Bucky asks, like he doesn't know.

"Thirteen," Steve says.

"Do the math, Rogers." He gets the jars attached and grabs a sticky-backed orange foam triangle and two googley eyes to make the face. "Hand me some buttons when you're done." He's sure Steve is watching him, but he's a trained assassin. He's also a stubborn bastard. He won't make eye contact if he doesn't want to and right now, he's looking at the damn hot cocoa snowman gift like it holds the secrets to the universe.

Finally, Steve says, "Okay, Buck." He hands over the buttons and Bucky thinks that's the end of it. If only he should be so lucky.

Later, he hears Steve talking on the phone with Sam. "I think he's making up for lost time," Steve says. "All the Christmases he missed when he was like that." Well, he's not _wrong_ but he's certainly not right either since he hasn't connected the motivations to the actions yet. Whatever Sam says makes Steve sigh because he just says, "Okay, yeah. I'll talk to you later," and hangs up the phone.

Bucky rolls his eyes and shouts, "If you've got something to ask me, come say it in here." Steve doesn't reply, so Bucky goes back to his most recent crotchet project. He thinks he's a riot, if he does say so himself. He's not sure Steve will appreciate it as much, but a fella's gotta try where he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not ashamed of this cheesy moment. My girl wanted signing. Merry Christmas Jen, Bucky is singing. And he's _terrible_ at it.


	9. Day Nine: Ugly Christmas Sweaters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony works on the sensitivity in Bucky's Stark-Approved metal arm.

Steve is not amused. At least, not as amused as Bucky. "You're joking," he says. He's holding the sweater out like he expects it to come alive and start dancing in his kitchen. Stranger things have happened.

"I can assure you; he's not." Stark is sitting on their kitchen counter drinking cocoa and eating the marshmallows straight out of one of the snoman jars. He'd arrived pretty much alongside that day's Amazon delivery for no reason other than being 'in the area.'' Bucky strongly suspects that means he's skipping a board meeting, but he's not Tony Stark's keeper. Pepper's insanely high salary and amazing wits have got that covered; he's got enough on his plate just managing himself and Steve.

Steve shifts his attention away from the dark blue penguin sweater in his hands and onto Stark. "Is there a reason you're eating our neighbors' Christmas gifts instead of letting Bucky make you a sandwhich like he offered?"

Bucky's proud of him for making polite conversation. He knows Tony grates on Steve and he knows part of it is just Tony and a lot of it is missing Howard. He suspects there's also some bitterness because he should have watched Tony grow up, not come back to meet him as a fully grown adult; and Bucky's not going to lie and say it wouldn't have been nice to grow up "Uncle Bucky" to the prodigal son instead of assassinating the prodigal father, but he takes what he's given a whole lot better than Steve. Stark's a good guy, and if all he gets is offering the guy a sandwhich while he skips a board meeting, it's better than missing out on meeting Howard's kid at all. It's better to get his sandwhich offer turned down in favor of marshmallows than for Stark to have been in the car with his parents.

Bucky cuts in before it can turn into a sass war the likes of which no one has seen in at least a month while these two have been seperate and reaches over to snatch a marshmallow from Stark's jar. "Let him keep it, Steve. I'm making lunch now anyways, though. Stark, you're staying. Sit."

Tony does not sit. Tony wanders over to the mantle in the front room and picks up one of the crocheted reindeer Bucky had made. "So Amigurumi is your thing, huh Barnes? Never would have guessed it." He puts it back down and asks, "How's the arm feel today?"

Bucky dumps the bag of vegetables he'd pre-chopped yesterday into the hot wok and dumps sauce over them. It's cheap, easy food. "Same as the last time you asked, Stark. A hell of a lot better than the old model."

"Of course it is," Tony says. "I built it." He comes back into the kitchen toting along Steve's StarkPad, with its cracked screen, and adds, "Can you get Capsicle to stop breaking the tech?"

"My fault," Bucky says before Steve can answer. "Kicked it off the table."

Stark raises his eyebrows. "And just what were you doing?"

"Is that really any of your business?" Steve asks.

To Bucky's surprise, Stark whirls and says, "It actually is, if it's going to involve the arm I built. Frosty over there wasn't in any shape to be worrying about that when I built it, but I want to make sure it won't lock up during that kind of sensory output. Barnes, get your ass over here and hold out your arm. Your boyfriend can stir for a while."

Bucky shrugs and takes off his apron and hands it to Steve. "We're not-" he starts to say.

"Doesn't really matter," Stark says. "Still want to make sure." He whips out a tool kit from seemingly nowhere and unlocks the panel on the underside of Bucky's bicep. It slides open and he buries himself in the wires and plates inside. "See, here's the thing," he says while he talks. "When I built the arm, we were still figuring out how to translate the data the arm could process into actual physical sensation. There's a lot of differences between programmed responses and physical sensation. We played the practice game a lot and had a lot of our best people-meaning me, obviously, and my helpful minions plus Bruce-trying to solve that issue. Sent it to the Think Tank and everything. When we finally got it, we knew there would be bugs. That's why we played "What's in the box" every time we made an adjustment, so you could be a real boy who knows if things are hot or cold or soft or spiny instead of a cyborg. It has enough feeling to recognize heat and impact, but no pain responders. What would be the point of a cybernetic arm that felt pain? But what you're lacking might cause the pleasure responders to overcompensate for. I don't want you two getting kinky and him accidentally frying anything while giving it to you. You're both relatively sound of mind and consenting adults should always be allowed the option to have playtime. Besides, it won't take long." He fiddles around a bit more while Bucky watches. Steve can't look, but Bucky's always liked to watch Stark work. It's his _arm_ after all. He wants to know what's going on. Besides, he's got the future attached to his body as a limb. It's pretty cool. 

He takes a look at what Stark is doing. "So you don't have to remove the panel to make the adjustment?" he asks. Stark likes knowing everything; Bucky likes learning. It's a good partnership.

"Nope." Stark picks up a different screwdriver, saying, "Hold this," as he sets the first one on Bucky's limp metal palm. It's not like he can move the disengaged limb right now anyway and he sees Steve roll his eyes from near the stove at the joke. "And really, I didn't do much with pleasure response in it before anyway. You can feel touch, but I'm still working on more sensitive responders. It takes a whole lot of "if/then" statements to make a piece of metal, work of art though it may be, respond like human skin. You still flinch back from too much heat, right?"

Bucky nods, even though Tony's not looking at him. It doesn't matter if he answers at all. Stark will just keep going. He sort of likes that about Tony. Howard was a pompous prick about his knowledge; every time he spoke to the guy it was like watching him put on another show. Tony is like a high school teacher with too much enthusiasm. He knows his shit and wants to show off, but he shows off in a way that makes Bucky feel like he's learning, not witnessing. Steve doesn't see the difference, but Bucky likes science in a way Steve never did. And Tony...Tony talks like he assumes everyone is his equal and can keep up. He talks like he's just sharing knowledge. Bucky likes how much he learns just from talking to Tony for five minutes.

As expected, Tony doesn't even pause to see if Bucky has nodded. "That's human instinct; it's your brain responding with a wetware equivalent of an if/then of 'Oh shit, fire is hot.' But you can put a knife in your palm without flinching because you know your palm is metal and you can't draw blood. It's a concious knowledge; a different response. Pleasure receptors are like a combination of the two. If we wire them right, you should feel good when someone touches your arm gently and a dull thud when someone hits your arm. No pain should ever factor in. But if we don't wire it right, all the queries in the world won't keep the code from going haywire with your actual nerves and overloading you. That's why we're doing this now, before any real hanky panky happens." He stops and glances up. "It hasn't happened yet, right? I know Romanov won the kissing bet, but if there was a bet for that I should have been involved."

Bucky smirks. "In the bet or the action?"

Tony is frowning at a wire. "Either, really." His tone implies it's a joke but he sounds distracted.

"Everything okay in there?" Bucky asks.

"Yeah," Tony says, "peachy. Tell me how this feels, though." He reaches in with a set of plier and tweaks a wire.

Bucky sees white. "Shit!" His eyelids flutter. It's not a good or bad sensation in itself. Neither painful nor pleasing, just an overload. He feels like he's buzzing from his shoulder to the end of his ribs. "Wrong wire, Kronk," he pants, trying to keep his muscles still. The last thing he needs to do is jerk around while Stark's got tools inside what technically amounts to a part of his body.

Stark scrambles to disconnect the wire. "Okay, you need a few adjustments made to it; that's fine. I can make sure that won't happen again but it might feel a little numb, sensory wise, in the meantime. You should maintain full range of motion, though. I'll figure out what went wrong. Give me a working StarkPad."

Bucky is still trying to catch his breath. He feels fuzzy, like too much is happening in his arm still. It's just his nerves recovering, he knows, from being bombarded with response info from the fake nerves in the arm, but it's still a weird feeling. "I thought we were avoiding an overload." He stands on shaky legs and gets his tablet.

Stark waves him off. "It's a minor hiccup; gimme."

It's another few minutes before food is ready and it takes Tony another hour of tapping away on the tablet before he's ready to make the necessary changes. Bucky spends the time looking at recipes on Steve's tablet. His erection had gone down quickly enough after the surprise stimulous and he spends the whole time with his arm pressed firmly to his side. He doesn't care if Stark says it's numb; it needs to stay out of his way for now. Finally, Stark waves him over again. It takes all of five minutes for him to repair what needs repairing. "I told you," he says, touching the inside of Bucky's elbow. It feels warm and he can feel pressure, but that's all. A little better than before, but not enough to fry his brain. Stark shuts the panel. "But if you're ever feeling kinky, I'd be happy to find a way switch the reaction of the responders for you." He winks.

Bucky shoves him lightly and Steve huffs. "Do you want to stay for dinner?" he offers. "I'm making chili."

Stark waves him off and packs his stuff. "Nah, I'm going to head back to Pepper now. See you lovebirds in a few weeks."

After he's gone, Steve looks down at the arm. "It's really okay now?"

Bucky holds out his arm. "Go ahead." Steve's touch is hesitant, ready to yank back at any second. The feeling is soothing, but does nothing to his system that it shouldn't. "See? It's fine."

"I thought it hurt you, at first," Steve says.

Bucky shakes his head. "Nah. Threw me for a loop, but I'm all good."

"Good," Steve says. "Then you won't mind putting on that awful sweater, since you're making me wear one." Bucky picks up his bright red Santa sweater and Steve laughs. "You look great," he says through his giggles. "Stunning, really."

"Fuck off, Rogers; they're fun," Bucky says. Admittedly, the soft knit does feel much better on his metal arm than it would have that morning.


	10. Day Ten: Holiday Baking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky bakes and goes to group.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actively avoided talking about anything group related for the sake of the comfort of the readers. Be warned, though, that Bucky does attend a group for PTSD in this chapter and there is a young man worrying about his ability to parent while being mentally ill.

Bucky gets up early the next morning. His group session doesn't meet until the afternoon, which means he has all morning to work on his plan. Steve is gone for the morning in some sort of meeting. Bucky may have threatened everyone into finding someone else to do their dirty work for the month, but they still need Steve as a strategist. Bucky figures it's fair trade.

He starts with peanut butter because they're the easiest. He has a whole jar of peanut butter dedicated to these cookies, which he'd labled by writing **NOT FOR EATING** on the lid in Sharpie. It's a good thing, too. Steve has a tendency to eat the peanut butter straight out of the jar with a spoon. Bucky uses a table spoon from the silverware drawer to scoop out three heaping spoonfuls of peanut butter. He adds an egg and eyeballs the measurement of the sugar to about one cup and mixes it all together. He drops them onto the pan and goes to poke at the oven and set it to 350°F. Then he shoves the tray of cookies into the freezer and starts the next batch.

These cookies are the modern equivalent of his mom's old treat. She used to make them whenever they had peanut butter and sugar. Bucky used to sit and watch and if he helped, he got to lick the spoon she'd used for the peanut butter. Nowadays, the peanut butter is different and they always have sugar and eggs ration-free. They were the first cookies he made when he started baking because he was sure three ingredients would be impossible to mess up. He'd been wrong and he'd eaten his burnt peanut goop with pride.

While the first batch chills, Bucky starts the next set. He uses the trippled recipe as a base and adds some cinnamon and vanilla. Then he digs out a bag of mini chocolate chips and tips some in. These had been Steve's and Thor's idea, after a night of Asguardian liquor and dominoes. Bucky had made the base and they'd thrown in what sounded good. It had ended up turning out okay. He was definitely happy to do without the rainbow sprinkles and marshmallows, as well as use real chocolate chips instead of a smashed candy bar, but they'd made a decent peanut butter chocolate chip cookie with their drunken concotion.

He pops the dough in the fridge to cool and takes out the set in the freezer and sticks them in the oven. He sets the timer for twelve minutes and washes the bowls. Once everything is clean, he digs out the ingredients for sugar cookies. He's got Pandora queued up and playing an upbeat mix Jane's assistant had set up for him. He triples the recipe and starts sifting his flour while Justin Beiber tells a manipulative ex girlfriend to go love herself. Taylor Swift tells him bandaids don't fix bulletholes while he adds the dry ingredients to the wet. Commercials play while he cuts the dough into thirds and seperates them. The first cut gets rolled into balls and dropped onto a tray on their own with a little sugar. The second, he works in cinnamon and rolls every ball in a cinnamon sugar mix before putting them on the tray. The last set he tips an entire container of red, green, and white sprinkles into and kneads the dough. He's wrist-deep in confetti cookies by the time the music comes back on.

Steve comes home around lunch time. By then, Bucky has the peanut butter cookies-both plain and chocolate versions, bagged and their cooling rack washed and dried for reuse. There are stacks of sugar cookies on separate plates and chocolate chip cookies cooling next to cinnamon roll cookies and eggnog snickerdoodles. He's just pulling the last of the cutout sugar cookies out of the oven and replacing them with pans of peppermint white chocolate cookies.

Steve looks around at the piles of baked goods. "Are we opening a bakery?" he asks.

Bucky pulls out a collection of treat bags printed with snowmen. "We're taking them to the VA."

"We?" Steve picks up a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie and crams it in his mouth before Bucky can whack him. "I didn't realize I'd promised to be a girl scout for the day."

Bucky gestures at the stack of broken cookies on the other side of the counter. "Take from the reject pile, would you?" He starts bagging one of each cookie, reading off a list on his StarkPad of the admin workers to make sure he doesn't give anyone with a nut allergy their death in a cookie. "You haven't been down in a while; I'm sure the people in your group would appreciate seeing you." The words are said casually enough that Bucky hopes they don't sound confrontational. "Besides, I need help carrying the cookies. It's raining." Steve has that stubborn set to his jaw. "Come on, Stevie," Bucky wheedles. "You gotta help bring them in."

Steve sighs and grabs a handful of the broken cookie pieces off the discard plate. "Do you need help?" he asks.

Bucky grins. "Sure," he says. "Why don't you get the ones without nuts plated onto these two trays and I'll get the other set out of the oven?"

They work in silence until Steve says, "I'm pretty sure not wanting to date models isn't a Christmas theme."

Bucky sticks his tongue out. "Hoodie Allen is for all seasons," he says. "Darcy made this playlist; I should at least know a few songs from it before we see her." He adds the now cooled peppermint cookies to the trays and gets everything wrapped in plastic. "Let's get these in the car," he says. "Then we'll do sandwiches before we leave."

  


They're finishing their BLTs when Bucky's phone goes off. **Should we expect one or two supersoldiers today?** Sam's text reads. Bucky shoots off a reply: **Operation: Help Me Carry the Cookies and Since You're Here Shut up and Sit Down is go.** He deletes the texts after getting back a **10-4** from Sam. It's not that Steve looks at his phone but one can never be too careful when goading stubborn supersoldiers into support group sessions.

He helps Steve cleans up and grabs his keys, herding Steve into the car and cranking up the heat right away. They drive down to the VA carefully, with Bucky braking before every turn to avoid tipping over the cookies. He's probably pissing off the other drivers, if the people zipping around him flipping him off are anything to go by, but he's not going to tip the trays over. He spent all morning on them dammit, if he wants to drive the speed limit he can. He has to admit, though, that when even the car with the Oklahoma license plates is driving faster than he is he might be overdoing it. They make it to the VA with fifteen minutes to spare before the groups start and stack the trays to carry inside.

As soon as they're inside Bucky hands the box of labeled gift bags to the woman at the front desk. He directs Steve to drop off one of his trays at Bucky's room and take the other to his own. Sam meets them before they've reached the room. "Cutting it close, guys," he says.

"Bucky drove like the cookies were his firstborn," Steve says, the traitor. Bucky frowns at him and passes Sam one of the trays.

There are two types of recoverees, Bucky figures. There are the ones who go to groups, like he does, and the ones who don't see the point. Bucky used to fall into the second category, figuring that if you had a problem you ought to handle it yourself. When Sam had first reccomended it, he'd also explained AA and drug support groups. Bucky had asked why anyone would want to go to a group where all people did was focus on the things that bothered them. It took one session to realize how wrong he was. At least, wrong for _him._ He likes the anonymity, the ability to say the things he can't to Steve. It's like talking to Natasha. He can say _It didn't occur to me until a week ago that the thought of killing sickens me enough to catch a spider and release it but I would do it in a second for the right reasons and never have a single nightmare about it_ without being looked at like he's wrong or something to be fixed. He likes hearing that other people go through the same things. It means he's still a person, still himself, to be able to relate to other veterans.

He thinks Steve believes he's in the second category, but he also knows Steve needs someone to talk to, or at least needs to hear that what he's feeling is normal. So he whinges and pushes and sometimes Steve goes to group and comes home with less weight on his shoulders for the night.

There's a kid in his group who has been missing for a few sessions. Bucky claps him on the back and offers him a cookie. The kid's face is drawn, moreso than usual. He sits through the session in total silence, hunched in on himself. It's the worst Bucky's seen him since the first time he came. He wanders over to where the kid is still sitting, staring at his hands and holds out a cup of coffee. The kid barely startles.

Bucky shifts in his chair until he's basically facing the kid. "Want to tell me what's going on, Jonah?"

The kid clamps his jaw down and says nothing. Bucky waits. They sit in silence for a few more minutes. One or two guys stroll by and drop a hand briefly on the kid's shoulder and keep moving, leaving them in privacy. "She's pregnant," he says. His voice is barely above a whipser.

Bucky feels his eyebrows go up. "Annalee? Congrats. You wanna tell me what the issue is?"

"Starting with the fact that we're not married, or is that too obvious?" Jonah's tone is nasty, scathing. But it seems directed inward. Bucky waits. "I can't...I'm not." He stops. "I shouldn't have a kid. I'll fuck it up."

"Do you drink?" Bucky asks. Jonah shakes his head. "Nah neither did my dad. But I had buddies whose fathers came back and drank until they didn't mind beating the stew outta their own kids. You gonna do that?"

Jonah looks horrified. "Of course not."

Bucky nods. "You do drugs?" Jonah shakes his head again. "Smoke? Gamble? Hire sex workers and take them to opium dens?" Jonah seems torn between glaring and rolling his eyes. "If you take care of them, they'll turn out okay. Kids are harder to ruin than you'd think. Maybe you should do a few more one-on-ones, though. See about getting some guidance on that. Maybe buy your girl a ring, if that's what she's wanting."

"We don't have anybody," Jonah says. "Stupid kid's gonna grow up with no family."

Bucky looks at the door. A few of the younger guys are lingering, waiting for Jonah as casually as possible. "They'll be fine, trust me."

He claps Jonah on the shoulder and stands up. "If you need anything, you call me. Okay, kid?" Jonah nods and Bucky tells him to take some cookies and leaves to find Steve. He finds the blond whispering furtively to Sam and slows his pace while they finish their conversation. When he gets to them, he says, "That kid Jonah could use someone to talk to. Let Mikey know, would you? He was out of the room when we finished talking."

Sam nods. "I'll let him know." Steve quirks an eyebrow but Bucky just shakes his head.

It's not until they're in the car that Bucky says anything. He doesn't say much at all: there's a kid in his group whose girlfriend is pregnant; the kid needs some guidance. Steve is silent for a good portion of the drive. "You should ask them to dinner," he says.

And by god, Bucky loves him. He loves Steve Rogers so damn much. "I will," he says. "That's a great idea; thanks, Steve."

When they get home, he pulls out the plate of cookies he'd set aside for them. Steve grins and carries it to the couch. Bucky grabs two beers and joins him.


End file.
